Xf fire if you can to a second 5850 and you should be good u know? Why not? and should be a LOT cheaper .... like in the 120$ range or less ... locally i am seeing people selling for 100-120$ .... so i would Xfire get a 6970 performance with less money ... unless u got on that amazon sell for 6970 for 220$ ??

1v1 the 5850 is actually better buy a small bit especially since most OC up to 1GHz pretty easily, but when you go CF the 6870 would pull ahead, I would say wait it out until next family of cards is out, a 5850 CF is still quite formidable.

1v1 the 5850 is actually better buy a small bit especially since most OC up to 1GHz pretty easily, but when you go CF the 6870 would pull ahead, I would say wait it out until next family of cards is out, a 5850 CF is still quite formidable.

That's what annoys me about the progression in these last few series. My 5850s are 'ancient' in computer hardware terms. I think I bought them both during the release week.

On one hand its a testament to ATI and how good the cards are that they are still current, but also a shame in that SO MUCH TIME has passed and there is nothing notably better on offer.

I think I may just unlock the card to a 5870, and stay with it. Opinions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by farmdve

Never heard of a 5850 being unlockable.

They're not; shaders can't be unlocked, but they can be flashed to 5870s BIOSEs and/or OC'd to the same/higher clocks.
Its only a 3-8% difference from a 5870 when compared clock-for-clock, so the benefit from heavily OCing a 5850 is very substantial.

Quote:

Originally Posted by XAslanX

Keep the 5850 and see how the 7k series turns out, not worth it to go from what you have to a 6 series card.

+1 doing the same myself.
Honestly there's not much an OC'd 5850 can't run at 1920x1080/1200 anyway.